Great Leaders in Adversity, and how Compassion Built a Championship Culture, with Jim Johnson

What separates great leaders from those who simply manage people?

In this inspiring episode of Unapologetic Leadership, Cory Dunham sits down with legendary coach, keynote speaker, and bestselling author Jim Johnson to explore the leadership principles that create extraordinary teams, lasting influence, and unforgettable moments.

Jim shares the remarkable story behind one of the most inspirational moments in sports history, when high school team manager Jason "J-Mac" McElwain, a young man with autism, stunned the world by scoring 20 points, including six three-pointers, in his only varsity basketball game. That single act of compassion not only transformed Jason's life but became a global reminder that the greatest leaders see potential where others see limitations.

Together, Cory and Jim discuss how great leaders build trust through compassion, lead themselves before leading others, ask better questions, stay steady during adversity, and create championship cultures rooted in purpose, faith, and service. You'll also discover why your greatest legacy won't be measured by trophies or titles, but by the lives you impact.

If you lead a business, coach a team, manage people, or simply want to become a better leader, this episode will leave you inspired and equipped with practical leadership principles you can apply immediately.

Because championships are remembered...

But leaders who change lives are never forgotten.

About Jim Johnson

Coach Jim Johnson spent more than 30 years building championship high school basketball programs, earning 428 career victories while developing thousands of student-athletes into leaders. His leadership philosophy gained worldwide attention after giving team manager Jason "J-Mac" McElwain the opportunity of a lifetime, creating one of the most inspiring moments in sports history.

Today, Jim is an internationally recognized keynote speaker, leadership coach, and author who helps business leaders, educators, and organizations build championship teams through leadership, perseverance, teamwork, and purpose. His signature message, Dreams Really Do Come True!, reminds audiences that true leadership has the power to transform lives and create lasting impact.

Connect with Jim

Website: https://www.coachjimjohnson.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome to Unapologetic Leadership. If you felt stressed, overwhelmed, wrestling with the imposter syndrome, wondering if you're just not good enough, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Corey Dunham.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to this episode of Unapologetic Leadership, where I have Jim Johnson who helps business leaders and educators build championship teams. He's a keynote speaker, does workshops and coaching. Plus, he's an author. So welcome, Jim.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Hey, Corey. It's great to be with you. I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah, I appreciate you being here. So tell us what you do and how you impact the world.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

All right. My first 35 years was I was an educator. I was a teacher and a coach, and I coached various sports, but my main sport that I was a head coach for 30 years was basketball, boys basketball specifically. And I did that, uh, had my ups and downs, ended up having a pretty darn good career. The second half was way better than the first half. And the other blessing I had was I was part of a very inspirational story that ended up blowing up over all over the world. And little did I know that I ended up be doing a second career that kind of overlapped for about 10 years with my education career, and now I speak full-time. I do mostly keynotes, I do some breakouts, and I've written been part of two books, one book about this the story that I was involved with.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

You said the story that you were involved with?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah, so back in 2006, I had a young man, his name was Jason McGellwain. Everybody knows him as J Mac. And he J Mac's on the autism spectrum. And back when he he tried out for our teams at Grease Athena, where I was the head coach for three consecutive years, and he was very small in stature. He wasn't a very talented player, but man, he had a big heart. And I he really grew on me. And he ended up serving as our team manager for three years. But I had never seen a kid so dedicated. I never, in my 30 years as a head coach, ever had a player try out three consecutive years without making it. So his senior year, when I told him that he was unfortunately not good enough to make the team, but I wanted him to serve as a manager. I wanted to give him a gift. And the gift was in our final home game where we honored the seniors, I wanted to give him a uniform so he could go through the senior night with his other teammates instead of his white shirt and black tie that he normally wore during games. And that's what I did. And I told him that I was hoping to get him in the game. And of course, he was pretty excited about that idea. In fact, periodically about in the season, he would ask me about the uniform. And of course, I defined periodically as about every other day. He was pretty excited about the uniform idea. Interesting part is that season started well. We won our first two games and we had a really good team, but then we had a real big event. It's too long of a story, but the bottom line is for your listeners, and I'm sure you working with leaders, if you've ever been on a team that was divided, we were the great example of that. We were really divided and it really we struggled for like three weeks. Unfortunately, we had a kind of a heart-to-heart, and the players opened up, and I became vulnerable that I didn't have the answers. Unfortunately, it helped because I really became a better listener, which I think is really important as a leader. In fact, I kid leaders today when I do leadership presentations that you should be the CQA, the chief question asker. And so I became much more curious and it helped me a lot as a leader. Unfortunately, we got some momentum, and Jason's night was on February 15th. That was our senior night. On February 13th, I gave him his first year uniform, it was number 52. It was way too big, but he didn't care. In fact, there was rumor going around school that he slept in it for two straight nights. So senior night, we honored our seniors before the game. We'd bring out their parents and guardians and announce them one at a time, but it was profoundly touching, Corey, to see Jason instead of in his white shirt and black tie, he's now down in number 52. And even though it was way too big, to see him embrace his parents in uniform was really special.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Well, the game starts. And my goal was I wanted to get Jason in with enough time so he could score a basket. I thought if he scored basket, that's a memory he'll have for the rest of his life. Well, the other thing is I knew I had to get all the other players, fairness, because they were regular team members and Jason was our manager. So after three quarters of the game, we'd gotten everybody in but Jason. So with just over four minutes to go, I thought the time was right. I turned and pointed to him. He nearly ran out the court. He was so excited. And then when he entered the court, what I didn't know is we had a really good student body following. They called themselves the six men. When Jason stepped on the court for the first time, they gave him a standing ovation. But what Jason and I didn't know is one of our parents had made these pictures of Jason's face and put them on paint sticks like placards, and the and the student body showed that. And I got so overwhelmed with emotion. I normally don't cry at a high school basketball game, but I sat down and tears started to flow down my face. That's awesome. Yeah, Jason's now in his first varsity basketball game. The first time we have the ball, one of his teammates throws it on me. He has a three-pointer from the right corner. He lets it go. And I kind of gaze because of the whole crowd stood up. Corey, it missed by like six feet. I know you're a person of faith like me. Yeah. And although in the public schools, you're not supposed to pray, but I was praying. I said, please, God, please help him get one basket. Well, the next possession, he had a much shorter shot from about 10 feet. And this time it hit the backboard, hit the rim, and fell off. And the crowd groaned. I'm thinking, all right, God's starting to listen. We're getting closer. Third possession, he has another three. And this time, Corey, magic. It goes in and the place erupts.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

God must be a basketball fan. He's not only has Jason scored, he's got a three-pointer and can't game better than this. Well, I got a couple last things about this, but I got to fast forward to give you some context. Jason's idol was the late Kobe Bryant. And six months after that game, Jason's at the Espie Awards. He's up for the greatest sports moment of the year. And I kid you not, there are four finalists for that award. And one of the other four finalists was Kobe Bryant. He had scored 81 points for the Lakers. Wow. Jason met his idol and then beat him out for the Espie. Well, how'd he do that? Well, he didn't just make one three. He came down to the next possession, made another three. Then he made a basket where his foot was on the line, so then he got two. And then the two things I'll never forget was about a minute ago, the place is in pure bedlam. And I'm sitting on the bench, tears flowing down my face because I cannot believe what I'm seeing. And I get a tap on my shoulder. I look behind me. It's Jason's mother, and she's calling her out. And she whispers in my ear, Coach, this is the best gift you could have ever given my son. What would you have done, Corey? I cried harder. Then this is how the game ends. Our opponent, Spencer Port, and I want to give kudos to their players and their coach. They were great sports that night. But they score with about 10 seconds to go. And our player takes the ball out of bounds and normally throws a door point guard, but he throws it to J Max. So J Max dribbling down the court, and I'm looking up the clock, seven, six. I thought they were just going to let him go in and make a short shot. He pulls up like two feet behind the arc, almost in the NBA three. I'm thinking, Jason, don't shoot from there. You're going to ruin this moment. He launches this rainbow. Swish. Oh my God. I look over and it looked like the movie Rudy and basketball. The whole stands ran on the court. Our players put him up on their shoulders. And at that point, I had no idea how many points he scores. And our public address announcer comes on and says the leading scorer for Greece Atina tonight, J Mac, with 20 points, including six three-pointers. Oh. It was truly, and there's so many things. I'll share one thing that touched my heart deeply. As I mentioned, we had a divided team that started to unite. But was so cool was the four players that were on the court with Jason. I never asked them to pass Jason the ball. Yet out of their own hearts, they passed the ball to him every possession. In fact, I still kid J Mac to this day. J Mac, I'm still looking for your first assist. You didn't pass the ball once. But it was certainly the most treasured night I ever had my 35 years as a coach.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

That's incredible. Just the amazing gift. Not only did you give to J Mac or J Macs? J Mac, a Macy. Mack. Yes, Jay Mack. Yeah, to give Jason that gift and his mom the gift. But really, you gave that gift to everyone in that place who got to experience that and then be a part of his celebration for his wins, which is pretty amazing. And the fact that you're talking about you crying and being emotional about this, I think that's pretty powerful because I'm a guy who doesn't cry very much either. I'm starting to cry more as I've gotten older, but just realizing the deep impact that either we can have or that somebody's having, and it's a huge win for them. And I used to be very selfish most of my life when I was younger, but then to be able to see other people win and grow. And I think that's to me a great leadership principle on your part that really having that intention to get him in a game, because I know it's tough for coaches to get some of those other players in the game. And I think that's just that's just amazing. Did you after that event, did you whether it was that same day or right after the game ended, did you have any more insights from doing that or making that decision? Because I'm sure you might have had some questions. I don't know. I'm not you, but you might have had some questions. Ooh, is this going to be the right thing?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Interesting because I've been a person of faith, but I will say because I'll give you quick context. So I was at that point in my career, I was kind of known as the coach that couldn't win the big one. We kept having wave seasons and we kept losing in our postseason tournament called the sectionals. Okay. In fact, I had taken six teams to the sectional semifinal, but never even getting past that to the finals. And so, you know, that was kind of my tracing my dream that I'm going to lead a team to a section by championship. But that that was God's message to me that as a coach, you can make so much more impact than just trying to win a championship because that was the greatest night in coaching. The ironic thing is you talk about being a great teammate. Jason, after that game, has got to go back and be our team manager because he had to play in six regular season games. And that thing started exploded all the world. He became this national hero. We were on all kinds of TV news stations and stuff, ESPN, you name it, Oprah Winfrey. And so uh it was pretty crazy. But at the same time, he was so into helping the team. Ironically, we ended up winning our first Section 5 championship later that season. So it was kind of the cherry on top, but nothing touched my heart and soul like Jason's night.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, it's so amazing as you talk about how God sometimes out of nothing just can create this amazing blessing that you could never see it coming. Sometimes out of the greatest challenges, or just you just never expected it. So I think that's awesome that God was working through you to be able to touch so many people's lives. And once you said getting exposure nationally through Oprah WinFee and all everything else, ESPN. So I think that's pretty powerful. And I feel that that's one of the things, having that empathy for people, just having a heart for people. And once you, like you said, not just focusing on what the win, or you know, you as a coach or even the basketball team for moving on to that next level uh and winning the championship. It is very difficult. It tugs on your heart both ways. You're like, can't we have both empathy and everybody gets a big impact out of it and win the championship or move to that next level? And sometimes it doesn't always happen that way, but that I think that's so cool that everybody has benefited from this. So very cool. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. So if you don't mind me asking about your faith life and you know how long, how long have you had faith or a Christian? How long have you been a Christian?

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Well, I grew up a Catholic and I'm still a practicing Catholic. So I did go through some different periods of where my faith was stronger and sometimes weaker. I will say I've always believed in God, but I will say after Jason's miracle game, it did strengthen my faith. And I ended up the funny little sideline when we were trying to, I had a co-wright author for the book that I wrote called The Coach and a Miracle about the story. And he ironically wrote for a Catholic newspaper called The Catholic Courier. And we ended up, it's a long story, so I'll just cut to the chase. We had trouble getting a publisher, and we ended up getting a he's a business consultant, but he's a big in the Catholic world. And I actually read one of his books through the church I went to. His name was Matthew Kelly, and Matthew Kelly had his own publishing company. He ended up publishing the book. You just never know. And Matthew travels the world, but and he talks to a lot of Catholic churches, and that's one of the big things he does. So it was ironic that my faith ended up helping getting the book published as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Oh, that's pretty cool. Would you say most of your values for most of your life have been through your faith or based upon that? How do you follow those values? Because we kind of talked about that a little bit ago about you being a coach and having these kind of choice you need to make. But how do you stay aligned with your values when there's pressure that's on in many different arenas?

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Well, one of the things that, you know, as I learned in my journey, and now I do a lot of leadership presentations, I always share that the first person you need to lead is yourself. And so getting clarity, and one of the things that helped me was my faith. Another thing was that I became an avid reader. A book that made a big impact on me was Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey. I actually was blessed to speak to the Covey organization a number of years ago. Unfortunately, it was a year after he had passed away, so I didn't get a chance to meet him. But one of the things in that book that really profoundly touched me, and something I really encouraged people is really finding your personal mission and then putting it down and having a personal mission statement. And that really helped me get clarity of who I was and what I stood for. And part of that mission creation was getting clarity of my values. So certainly, you know, growing up a Christian, I do believe in Jesus Christ. And so his values were a great example. But I think as a person, you have to be real clear on what are your most what I call your core values, whether it's three or five, sometimes people have 10, whatever it is, but then really get understanding what they are, what the behaviors are, and living them on a daily basis. And when there's no one like Jesus that could leave it, live them as well as he did, but we can do the best we can individually to live out our values on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, I think that's a great point. Those your personal mission and your core values, because nowadays, with so much information out there, we have information overload. There's as I call these algorithmic cultures being created, or if you're in Facebook, it uh I was just talking to somebody else about this too, that it'll tend to show you what you tend to look at. And also it sometimes shows you other things that somehow maybe linked that they want you to see. So very odd things sometimes. You're like, where did that come from? But they're in control of that. And sometimes we think that's the world, that's what everybody's thinking, that's how everybody feels, but that's not always the case. So really keeping in touch and aligned with your personal values, core values, and whatever they are. And I tend to lean on, I used to do that too, where I would have, oh I've got 10, 20 values, but then you forget them, you don't remember them, and you're not really living them, as you said. You have to embody them with your um your attitude, your mindset, and your actions. So I always recommend when I coach people is have maybe just a few of them. It's just recommendation, nothing's the right way. But I ideally it keeps it simple and it keeps them very clear and easy to remember, easy to live by. So I think that's a huge thing, but those are some great points in making sure you do that. Also, too, with in terms of coaching and leading and then speaking, and when you go out speaking, do you mostly talk about basketball or is it leadership principles through basketball?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Well, I started, I was uh one speech person for because I coached and taught for 10 more years. In fact, Jason came back and volunteered my program as an assistant coach my last eight. So we became even closer, which is really cool. So my first speech was called Dreams Really Do Come True, where I talk about six keys to help people making their dreams come true, sharing Jason's story is the primary thing. When I retired from teaching and coaching in 2016, I then uh wanted I got more into the leadership in team building because that's what I had done along. So I started a leadership where I have seven keys to leadership. I still wave Jason's story in, but also illustrate with other stories. And then one that I've been doing for the last few years is how to build championship team culture. So and I talk about five principles and building culture and that kind of thing. So that's what I've been mainly a keynote. I do some breakouts, I do a goal setting breakout, I do a leadership breakout and that type of thing. But I'm mainly a keynote speaker and try to so my I brand myself as an inspirational leader. I wanted to bring some inspiration and also give people some tangible takeaways to transform them to be better leaders of themselves and then also be better leaders of others.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yep. Yeah, yeah, that whole piece on self-leadership, I also focus on that too, because it's so easy in society and the examples we learn. It's kind of the something goes wrong, we kind of point the finger. And as somebody has reminded me, is that every time you point the finger, you got three of them pointing back at you. It's like, okay, this is probably where the the emphasis should lie is with myself first. And then two, the other piece of leadership I've had mentor to me is that leadership can be defined by one word, which is example, example, example. So the example we set. And not necessarily what we used to do, but what we're currently doing right now. And I think of that with kids in in the past of one of the sayings was, you know, hey, do as I say, but not as I do.

unknown 19:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

And it's kind of not the greatest example of leadership, because as soon as they either get to be your age or an adult, they're like, hey, I can't wait to be 18 or do make my own decisions because then I'm gonna do those cool things.

unknown 19:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Maybe so cool, who knows? But uh yeah, I love the idea of self-leadership. Yeah. Have you ever, I don't know if you have an example or if you can think of anything where you might have had some challenges in the past and then realized that it pointed back to your self-leadership that maybe you were not considering or aware of at the time.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

But nothing huge necessary, but yeah, yeah. The the powerful point you brought up, because that's one of my seven keys, is lead by example, because pretty much leaders know that, but how many of us don't do that consistently, right? So in the story actually relates back to that season, uh, you know, because I was doing a lot of reflecting after being known as the coach that couldn't win the big one, we kept losing and we lost in some really difficult games, you know. We thought we had the game one. And what I realized is that I was, I think a really good example for my team during the season and in the offseason, but where I changed for the bad or the negative was during the postseason because I wanted to win that championship so bad that I didn't handle adversity well. And as the model, when we would go through something difficult, I didn't handle it well. And my players uh obviously saw that. And so one of the packs I made during that JMAC season is I said, you know what, no matter what adversity, because we had a lot of adversity during the season, I said, I'm gonna be the rock. And this is something I really made a dramatic change. I said, in this postseason, no matter good or bad, I am going to be the rock. And I'll give you two quick examples. The semifinal game, the game that you know what was my big stumbling block. We had been the six of those. We're ahead of halftime by 10 points. We implode, must have been a poor halftime speech. We lose the whole lead, we're losing in the fourth quarter. But this time I was different. I stayed positive. Our players responded, we rallied, we won the game. Then in the championship game in our area, we played our downtown arena, and we're not a basketball hotbed. So, you know, usually for our championship game, we'll get about four or five thousand people of our arena and seats ten. But because we had gotten so much publicity, we had uh it was when we walked in the arena for the championship game, we all just sold out. We had 10,000 people. That's awesome. And so we start the game, Corey. We're down 13 to 3 after 4. Four minutes. I'm like, oh go, that pregame speech didn't work too well. But what I learned is that I said, you know what? I'm going to stay strong. I'm going to stay positive. Our players responded, and we ended up hitting a shot late in the game to win by three points. So it was pretty crazy. But so that was the best lesson because it really made me think of the power of being a model. And fortunately, as I mentioned, Jason came back and we ended up winning six Section 5 championships together. So we had quite a run at the end of my career. But that was a big thing I really talked to leaders about is what should how do you handle adversity? Are you the person they should follow because you model it well? Or are you someone that falls apart? Because you know what I always told our players, but it started with me is as a leader, you are always on stage. People are always watching you.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yeah. Yeah, that's that is amazing. Because and we there's certain leaders we think of, okay, they're leaders because they're either in executive leadership positions or they're a manager or director or president of something. But you're so true, it's so true that what you're talking about that everyone, I feel, is a leader, that people are watching you and they're taking their notes, they're learning, and as you said, they see how you handle adversity. And that's probably one of the biggest things I know for me, growth areas and others that I've coached is how do you handle things when you're in adversity? Because when good things are going great, it's easy to be happy, easy to be loving and easy going. But when those adversities happen, how nasty do people see that I get? How howdy do I get? How many tantrums do I throw? And how long is that tantrum? And I just actually went to a training on business marketing along with speaking. And we went to an improv place, got trained for a couple of hours in improv. And I actually took a couple of sessions a couple of years ago. Okay, and then we actually got to speak and then implement what we were learning and then speak extemporaneously on the spot once we got to prepare five minutes for a topic and talk about it for three minutes, prepare four minutes and then two minutes and one minute. So we had got to talk like five times, and then we're like, wow, one minute, and we had to do a three-minute talk on it and relate it to our business. And then we had the opportunity the next day to then just get up, walk up to the front, pick up a topic, and then start talking about it in our framework toward our business. So learning to do those kinds of things. And at one point in the middle, which is a point I'm trying to get at, is I was frustrated because I was like, oh, I'm just not getting this as fast as everybody else is getting it. And I sounded terrible, I didn't feel good. But that was, as I told somebody else, that was just a moment. I told them like a second, but it might have been 10 seconds. But I got out of that and said, Okay, I'm not gonna leave, even though I want to leave. I wanted to walk out the back door and I'm like, I'm done with this. But I kept doing it, and then turns out my fifth talk was the best one, and everybody was clapping and said, Oh my gosh, that was really good. Yeah. So being persistent and learning is very similar to J Mac on that first shot where he was like 10 feet or six feet off. But the persistence and dedication and focusing on that vision, and how does that look and how do we behave and act? And then what example are we showing other people who we can inspire or we can take down a different road? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

So I appreciate your inspiration. If you want, I I do a short tactic. I mentioned that you know, John, that you've had on the show. We're accountability partners, and this has helped us a lot with our communication. I'll share with you and for your audience is it's called the random word exercise. And what the concept is that you you work with a partner and they share a word, and it's got to be some kind of subject where you can create a message. It can't be the word the or uh or something, but you know, like the word basketball, for example. And then when your person gives you that word, you can take 10 seconds to think, but it's as extemporary as like you said, and you the rule is we do it for 45 seconds, we each each time each other. So we're getting getting a clock in our head, yeah. And in that, you have what we try to do is work on a brand. So I said I'm an inspirational leader, so I try to share an inspirational message off of that word, and the rule is you got to say the word at least three times in the message, okay, and you're trying to do it for 45 seconds. It's amazing how helpful that's been. Because one of the problems you have in speaking is you end up with fill of words and the ahs and o's and that kind of thing. So it's been a really helpful exercise that I highly recommend people try it. It's been powerful.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Very cool. No, I like that idea. And it's that to me, it seems off the get-go since I just did this improv thing. Yeah, it seems so simple and very easy to do, but we just have to put the time in to be willing to do it and commit time in our schedule. So, yeah, excellent. Excellent point. Yeah. So, what was, I guess, one of your biggest leadership lessons that you've had to learn, whether personally or professionally in life.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

It's a great question because I have so many over the years.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

It's a trick question, but no, I hear you.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

One of the things that I really encourage leaders is that, you know, and I do, I'll often ask them how important is it to build trust? And I always get 100%, you know, trust is important. But my little angle on it is in something because we took over four different programs. The first one was a disaster. We won one game and they they fired me after one year. So it was not a good start. But the other three programs I was fortunate enough to be able to take. I really focused on how to build trust. And so I encourage leaders to have an intentional trust plan. Ours, we have three keys that we did in trying to work on building trust day in and day out. And that was very helpful because people, the things I talked to when we took over programs, we focused on two C's. And one C was caring. We had really had to start by showing, and that builds trust because they know that they care about us. And then number two is challenging. We want to make we have very high standards, and as the leader, you got to model the standards, share the standards, and be the standard every single day. And so those are a couple of C's that we focused in in trying to build a great program. But it really started with our three-point trust plan. That's something that as we built time, and you know what? I know when I took over my last 27 years, I was in my hometown of Greece, and I took over a program that was really bad. And it took us a while. It took us really to about our fifth year before we really got the trust throughout the whole thing. Fortunately, after that, this next time I took over a program, we were able to do that a lot quicker because of the things I learned. But you realize that uh you just never know. And I'll tell you one quick side story that I do share on some of my is when I was at Greece Olympia, my second last stop, I had a young man that tried out, uh he had transferred in from another school, and he was a junior. And I got to know him. His name was Alex, and he was actually from Nigeria and he moved to the United States. And a week before we were starting his junior year, he comes in and he breaks down in my office because he was living with an older brother and was moving out of town because he was taking another sales job. And Alex said, Is there any way I can stay? And I was at a family function the next day, and my aunt, my mother's sister, ended up taking Alex in. And the crazy thing is, Alex was pretty good, but we found that he uh didn't work very hard, and his attitude was a little subpar. And his dream was to get a college basketball scholarship, but it didn't come to fruition. But my aunt and I kept pushing, and he ended up going to prep school, and then the light came on, and he ended up getting a full basketball scholarship and had a great career at the school. But here's the crazy thing is he gets his first job, he's at MTV, and he starts moving up the ranks, and he realizes MTV at that point does not have a lot of presence in Africa. So he convinces the leaders in MTV that there's a real market there, and he was right. He ended up being the vice president of MTV Africa. My aunt called me one day that had taken him in, and he lived with her for six years. And she says, Jim, you got to pick up Forbes magazine this week. I said, I don't read Forbes magazine, Midge, I read Sports Socialistry. She goes, Well, you want to read Forbes? I said, Why is that? Alex is on the cover.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

So yeah. That's powerful. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, well, thank thank you for sharing so much. And I really appreciate you, Jim, for sharing all the these great leadership principles through basketball, through speaking. And I just thank you so much for being here and sharing all the great stories that you've had.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

It's my pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Uh it was a great discussion, and I look forward to staying in touch with you. So yeah, that sounds great. And what's the best way people can get connected with you?

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yeah, so uh my website is probably the easiest. It's coachjimjohnson.com. That way I wouldn't forget it. Or personally, if people want to email me, it's coachjimjohnson at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Awesome. Thank you so much. And I want to thank you for listening to this episode of Unapologetic Leadership, where we learn that having empathy and compassion for other people like Jason, J Mac, and allowing them to grow can be a huge influence on the impact that it has with other people, along with learning to be a chief question asking person or chief question asker. I don't even know how to say it, but but learn to listen more. Yeah, learn to listen more. And I think that's one of the big lessons I've learned over life is really listening to people and seeking to understand instead of seeking to be understood, which I think is out of the what's the book again? Seven habits. Yeah, seven habits of yes, by Stephen Covey. And and just realize too, it's important to find your personal mission, what your core values are, and then make sure you're embodying those, you're practicing because you are an example, whether you realize it or not. Everyone's a leader and everyone is an example, and how you handle adversities is a huge thing because people are going to watch that and they're gonna take your lead, especially if you're leading teams and creating some big things. And one last thing is to create trust. How do you care for people and how do they see it? So thank you again for listening. We'll see you in the next episode.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

So that's it for today's episode of Unapologetic Leadership. Head on over to wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Corey Dunham himself. So head on over to Upologetic Leadership Podcast dot com and pick up a free copy of Corey's gift. And join us on the next episode.